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Archive 2014 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Caleb Williams
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Hey guys,

Quick question: do you use focus point expansion for swimming photos or stick with a single point?

In the past I've used single point (didn't have any other choice), but in my only other swimming shoot this season, I used expansion. I found the result wasn't as I expected, (missed focus, usually in front) but thought that may have been rust too.

Also, this topic came up a few months ago, but I never had time to post it. For those of you that have the capability, do you use Audio Notes for swimming to help keep track of who is competing? In the past I've taken photos of the event number (which fortunately is display prominently) so I know what race/heat it is, but I don't always know which swimming from a school is which (most schools don't put names on the caps).

Any insight is helpful.

Thanks,

- Caleb

Feb 13, 2014 at 05:23 PM

Russ Isabella
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Caleb: What camera are you using? (Your profile shows 1DIIN but wanted to check.) I ask because with the 1Dx and 5DIII, when you activate surrounding points, you also can control a setting that determines how quickly (or slowly) the camera will switch to those points. That level of control definitely plays into the answer to your question.

Feb 13, 2014 at 06:23 PM

Caleb Williams
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Russ,

I have the mk IIn.

Caleb

Feb 13, 2014 at 09:38 PM

bpalermini
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

I use a single point. Expansion seems to move to the water splashes often.

My swim photos are HERE if you care to look. 1DX, single point, AV, mostly 300mm.

Feb 13, 2014 at 10:23 PM

Russ Isabella
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Caleb: In that case, I can see why single-point (with no expansion) would be the way to go.

Feb 14, 2014 at 01:24 AM

Caleb Williams
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

bpalermini wrote:
I use a single point. Expansion seems to move to the water splashes often.

My swim photos are HERE if you care to look. 1DX, single point, AV, mostly 300mm.
nice. I saw some of your photos last fall when sot Oxy cross country. never know who is a member on FM.

Outdoor swimming? I may have to move to California. When my sister was on the swim team in high school it was ISO3200 and still too dark (before there was higher than ISO 3200). I can't imagine shooting swimming less than ISO 1000. I'll be at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center and if I recall ISO 1600 will be pretty much standard.

thanks Russ as well.

Feb 14, 2014 at 02:02 AM

pjbuehner
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Covering swimming is such a pain trying to keep track of whose head and arm you are capturing. What has worked for me in the past is to get a copy of the schedule and lane assignments, shoot the actual sheet with the event circled or otherwise isolated, then shoot the starting block of the swimmer to get the lane number. The key is to shoot the lane assignments/ event sheet before every single start. If I do that, it is easy to figure out who you are shooting when processing them after. I haven't used the audio notes with success. I also don't have news deadlines so I can look them over at home without delivery deadlines.

Feb 14, 2014 at 08:54 PM

Scott Sewell
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Single point for me.

Also, that audio feature on the pro bodies is, IMO, a reason to have a pro body. Maybe they're putting that feature on the pro-sumer bodies, but it's a feature I use all the time.

Feb 14, 2014 at 11:25 PM

Caleb Williams
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Scott Sewell wrote:
Single point for me.

Also, that audio feature on the pro bodies is, IMO, a reason to have a pro body. Maybe they're putting that feature on the pro-sumer bodies, but it's a feature I use all the time.

My problem is I can't "tag" the photo by locking it and have PhotoMechanic pull it off the card if there is an Audio File. Unless there is a way to pull only pix with audio files off the card in PM. That would be more for news captioning purposes and less of who's actually in the photo. Maybe I should do what PJs do and bring a reporter's notebook.

Thanks for all the input on this topic. Any additional thoughts are always appreciated and I'll try to let you all know how the swimming goes.

- Caleb

Feb 15, 2014 at 03:27 AM

Scott Sewell
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Caleb, I always have a notebook in my camera bag, but the audio feature is the only reason I rarely carry it with me. I'm not quite following what you're doing, but maybe I can explain what I do.

I record the audio file, THEN I can lock the file. PM will then let me select the option of just seeing the tagged files when I ingest. It will probably let me just ingest tagged files, but I'm not sure why someone would want to do that. I'm not on a computer with PM at the moment or I would check. I'm sure if it's possible it's easy to see the check box or option in the ingest options.

Hope that helps.

Feb 15, 2014 at 11:57 PM

Caleb Williams
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Scott,

Ended up not needing the audio feature for this meet. The men's team I was shooting for won so many events it was mostly just a case of pick a photo and he won something. And the photo I needed to send in was the team photo for use on the site.

http://www.stolaf.edu/athletics/sp/2013-14/msd-2014-02-15.jpg

A bit different for women, but fortunately because I had access to both the lane assignments (heat sheet) and the end results I'll be able to tells who's who (knock on wood) in conjunction with a photo of race's event number displayed on the board.

Unfortunately neither of the two women's teams I was shooting for won and individual event, though a few individuals placed third and and the single relay event placed second I was able to just send in one of the third-place finishers.

http://www.stolaf.edu/athletics/sp/2013-14/wsd-2014-02-15.jpg

As for PM:

Sometimes--though not always--during a shoot I will tag images I know I'll want to send out at halftime or the end of the game depending on my transmitting needs. When I go to import in PM, I'll import only the tagged ("locked" in PM terminology) into a separate folder I called "locked." I believe I got this idea from Michael Chang (mkchang) in another thread here.

I will then import all the files into the root event folder. That way I can can edit the "locked" files in Photoshop while the whole card imports. Waiting for the entire card to import has been less of a problem now that I am using a USB 3.0 equipped laptop, but it still can help me get images out quicker.

As for the audio notes, I had thought I had read that once an a note has been recorded, you cannot tag it (with the 1D mkIIn), but I'll have to explore that further.

- Caleb

Feb 16, 2014 at 03:42 AM

Monkey Falls
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Wow. Wish I had light like that to shoot swimming (1/1000, f/2.8, ISO 3200). The last meet I shot at a college, my settings were 1/1000, f/2.0, ISO 6400.

Feb 17, 2014 at 05:27 AM

Caleb Williams
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Focus Point Expansion/Audio Notes and Swimming

Monkey Falls wrote:
Wow. Wish I had light like that to shoot swimming (1/1000, f/2.8, ISO 3200). The last meet I shot at a college, my settings were 1/1000, f/2.0, ISO 6400.
I haven't been to the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center in a few years, but I spoke with one of the shooters that's been there more recently and he said the lighting was recently upgraded so that it's about a stop brighter in there. Minnesota is hosting the Women's B1G Championships and the Women's NCAA Championships this year, so it's possible that this is the reason why.

Feb 17, 2014 at 12:42 PM


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